A method of relaying data (esp. video and audio material) over a computer network as a steady continuous stream, allowing playback to proceed while subsequent data is being received

cyclosis: the circulation of cytoplasm within a cell

football

A form of team game played in North America with an oval ball on a field marked out as a gridiron

any of various games played with a ball (round or oval) in which two teams try to kick or carry or propel the ball into each other’s goal

The game of football is any of several similar team sports, of similar origins which involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball with the foot in an attempt to score a goal. The most popular of these sports worldwide is association football, more commonly known as just “football” or “soccer”.

A ball used in football, either oval (as in American football) or round (as in soccer), typically made of leather or plastic and filled with compressed air

the inflated oblong ball used in playing American football

Play in such a game, esp. when stylish and entertaining

row

A street with a continuous line of houses along one or both of its sides, esp. when specifying houses of a particular type or function

quarrel: an angry dispute; “they had a quarrel”; “they had words”

A number of people or things in a more or less straight line

A line of seats in a theater

propel with oars; “row the boat across the lake”

an arrangement of objects or people side by side in a line; “a row of chairs”

first row football streaming – Row, Row,

Row, Row, Row Your Boat: A Guide for Living Life in the Divine Flow

Row, Row, Row Your Boat is based on the idea that there is an underlying current in your life–a divine flow–that is continually guiding you toward the effortless fulfillment of your heart’s desires. The trick is learning how to recognize and cooperate with that flow. And that’s what this book will teach you how to do. In a refreshingly clear and memorable manner, you will find out how to stop blocking the experience of the divine flow in your life . . . and you will learn what you must do to experience the flow’s miracles more freely and more frequently. In short, you will learn how to stop struggling with life and start living life as it is meant to be lived–effortlessly and joyfully!

Brambletye: First day at school 1967

Memories of Brambletye Boys Preparatory School 1967 – 1971.

When I went to Brambletye at the age of nine, in September 1967, it was my fifth school in the last four years. As my parents were routinely being posted within the Army, they felt a boarding school would give me a more stable education. I vaguely remember touring the school with them and Mr Blencowe, the Headmaster, one summer before term and being asked if I would be happy there for the next four years, to which I obediently replied, "Yes".

The school seemed to be based on many military methods. Each boy was allocated to one of four Houses named after great British military heroes: there were Nelson, Marlborough and Drake, and I was in Wellington. Many boy’s fathers had been to Brambletye when they were young and it was not unusual for them to insist their son followed in the same House. Instead of prefects we had Officers. As just one part of the overall military discipline we had to march everywhere!

We had no first names even though all our parents may have thought long and hard about choosing a name that would either continue the family line, please a grandfather or uncle or be one of the "in" names in the 1960’s. Despite this being formalised by Christening we were only referred to by our surnames. The list of boarders showed a proliferation of double-barrelled surnames, and one poor boy was even blessed with a triple barrelled title. If you had the same surname as someone else, the older and more senior added "1" to his name, the junior adding "2". You had Smith 1 and 2 because they were common. They did get as far as Sommerfelt 3 but no other parents managed to produce four offspring within the four year scope of preparatory school life (fertility treatment had not been developed at this time!).

I remember the first night, going to bed later than it should have been at 6.30pm, and a few of the other sixteen or so boys in the dormitory sobbing into their pillows. They were comforted by the matrons in their starched white uniforms. I had the benefit of a few months on the majority of them as I was a Spring baby born in March, while there were still others born later in Autumn of the same year who were in the same intake. Whether this classified me as "retarded" because there were younger and cleverer boys in the same class, I shall never be sure, but I do know I didn’t cry on the first night.

The dormitory was a long room with nine steel framed beds down one side, seven down the other. One side had deep windows stretching from the high ceiling down to near the floor, overlooking the shallow valley below. To the right you could see a lake or reservoir that glistened in the sun. It appeared only a few miles away. To me it symbolised "freedom" as on nice sunny days you could see yachts sailing on it. But between the shimmering water and me was a gulf that might as well have been a thousand miles wide. I never ever did reach its shores, and be able to look back across to the school.

Winter terms could be dark and huge curtains were drawn across those high dormitory windows. In summer time even they couldn’t make it dark enough to sleep until late. But at least in summertime you could find the enamelled tin potties which were strategically located around the dormitory. These could get rather full and smelly over night and were a disgusting trap for little feet as boys sneaked around barefoot in their pyjamas after lights out. There was many a time when a toe stubbed a potty in the dark. There would be a stifled shriek either followed by the splashing of urine onto the wooden floor or the crashing of an empty tin potty skidding across the dormitory. If it crashed into the steel frame of a bed you had about 10 seconds to run back to the other end of the dormitory in pitch darkness, find your bed, leap under the blankets and "be asleep" before simultaneously the lights came on and a Master strode into the room. Anyone caught out of bed was in for a whacking!

Actually this only happened rarely. Dormitory raids were the exception rather than the rule. Mind you it was difficult from the juniors dormitory. The dormitory door led into a magnificent hall, very much the Headmaster’s part of the school, with offices, and staff rooms to the right. A huge skinned tiger with his stuffed head, bared teeth and glass eyes, lay star shaped on the parquet floor, ready to rip into your ankles if you dared pass. To the left lay a wood panelled corridor leading to Mr Blencowe’s room. Ahead, past the tiger, rose a magnificent wooden grand staircase. Above it a huge portrait of a very stern gentleman stared down forbiddingly towards the dormitory door. Access to the other dormitories could only be gained across this hall and up the staircase. With doors to left and right from which a master might appear at any moment, the staring, watching eyes of the portrait, and the risk of a master

(4) Stories for lonely shots – No Matter Where

The woods is where I ran. Over this, under that and up I clambered to escape the injury of home.

On a burning summers day, umbrage and anger sent me crashing through the warm, open house, determined as I was to flee from all this injurious order. I grabbed the essentials, crammed them into my kit bag and left the house with a discordant coda of spiteful words and a carefully slammed door. And then there I was. My life at the mercy of the soft summer zephyr that gently stirred the world. Dandelion wishes whirled in the air, birds sang their warbling songs and neighbours waved warm salutations. Against this onslaught of heat and warmth I stood stoic, a figure of determination incarnate. I set my feet to work and I was gone.

Across the pristine lawn, down the crooked driveway and out across the cul-de-sac. I headed with speed up the small hill, turning right at the top, a move that took me behind the fence that marked the end of my parents sightlines. On I marched through brambles and nettles, sticky willow and dock leaf all tramped and cast aside like the petty obstacles they were. I scattered gravel and woodchip as I scurried across the driveway of the old Stately home that overlooked my estate, their estate, and then I was on it. The start of my land, the entrance gate to my gloried fiefdom. An ancient world of dens and spires, swings and castles, heroes and vanquished villians where only I truly knew the routes.

I felt the anticipation of my freedom but I did not stop to savour it, in those days there was always later. Instead I burst a trail through the rhodedendrom that blanketed my kingdoms borders. Branches bent and flexed at my touch then snapped back into shape behind me forming a green wall of invisibility. On through the bluebells I ran, dodging roots and louping stumps with an instinctive gait. My young legs carried me to the clearing and there stood my citadel, the glorious oak whose mighty span choked the undergrowth and challenged the sky.

It was a tree of age and beauty. Its twisted knots of bark and spiralling branches carried the joy of a hundred childhood summers and the ghosts of a thousand tales. Remnants of abandoned treehouses hung from the natural plateau that scattered its towering heights. These fortresses of old could be accessed only by those who knew their way through the map of branches, and those people were few. The warped insignia of Graffitied initials gave lie to the truth that the adults always had been and us children would always be. Lost loves and first blooms thoughtfully and carelessly etched into the sap and grain and, in time, elevated higher than the lives they marked would ever climb.

Here it was I stopped running and started climbing. The cold, dictats of the world I had left could not, would not climb these turrets of emancipation. I was stocked with fruit, water and toys. All the essentials of life were with me and these roots, leaves and branches of this tree could be my world. Higher and higher I climb. 6 foot, 10 foot, 11 foot maybe even 12. Eye level to the gods I clambered and on that day I was as free as those deities.

My breath faltered and my legs demanded rest so I found a perch, my perch. I sat resting on the V of the fork of two of the higher branches. Their thick stems reached out into that immersive blue in dizzying fashion. If your heart was made of weaker will than mine, a look down or a glance out was enough to send you dropping like the leaves in an autumnal storm. Stout was my will and strong was my grip, I was here and here was home.

Time passed, clouds moved and birds sang. Still I sat. Winds blew and winds went, squirrels darted and cats chased. Still I sat. Somewhere in that glazed sky the sounds of a football game rattled and pulsed with the story of the match. Still I sat.

My heart slowed with time. My thoughts, which not so long before had rushed with a near physical force behind my young eyes, began to embrace more practical visions. My rations which on the outset of my escape had seemed like the first glorious meal of a new dawn now comprised of half an apple, a squashed banana and an empty carton of juice. My toys, the prospective troops and citizens of this new order had proved unskilled in the life of a tree dweller. Two ninjas had already spun to a leafy death, their final moments mercifully concealed beneath the lowest canopy of leaves. All I was left was a one armed Thundercat and a mistakenly procured Barbie doll. Adam and Eve they were not.

Dusk began to fall and with it came real discomfort, nagging, growing pain that racked my posterior. My fiefdom rustled with a cooling wind that muttered ill will and suspicion into my ear. I gazed to the south, to where the sun had been when I first made my break. Without the hazy glare I could see the house, their house. Just a small corner of the roof to be fair, but it was undeniably my corner of the roof.